Chapter three, King Dagda's house. At dusk, they arrived at King Dagda's
big mossy boulder and knocked three times. King Dagda opened the large, round
wooden door. Two field mice raced up the curtains, jumped across the long
oak table, tipped over a steaming cup of tea, and dashed out of
the door, nearly knocking them over. Thanks lads, shouted King Dagda,
and threw a couple of nuts after them. King Dagda was washing his clothes.
Sararah went straight over to inspect the mouse powered machine that he had invented
to grind baby teeth. It had taken each elf a hole night to finally
grind a tooth. They made a terrible racket with their hammers. She could
hear them from her house. Now they just put the tooth in the machine.
The mice ran happily around their wheel, and the elves sat around,
drinking cups of tea and chatting with the king. The teeth could be ground
up so quickly that King Dagda gave extra bottles to fairy gardeners to sprinkle on
their plants. In exchange, they gave King Dagda tasty fruit and veg.
You seem very pleased with yourself, said Queen Maeve. Well, yes I
am, he said. You know I adopted the tooth grinding machine to wash
clothes well. With extra mice, I can now wash a complete load in
twenty ticks. Sararah watched Queen mave pick her way across the floor between piles
of laundry, teeth, nuts, and bits of timber. She pushed aside
tools and plans to clear a space at the table. It reminded Zarara why
Queen may have had moved out to her own tidy, nicely decorated cottage.
Queen may have loved King Dagda, but she needed a spotlessly clean kitchen to
make her remedies in. It was impossible to sell fairy outfits when they were
covered in wood shavings. Plus his snores were famous, often shaking the whole
village, so she probably didn't get a wink of sleep. King Dagda grabbed
a dressing gown and gave Queen may have a big hug and a kiss on
the head. What is this, he said, removing a piece of leaf
from her hair. You look like a bush. Well, you know.
It's the same every year. At the end of summer party, she said,
the picks sees always get out of hand, dive bombing off the pier
into the lake. Then the young fairies join in and catch coals. I'm
nearly out of wild strawberry fever syrup. I've lost count of all the pots
of icy mint headache tea I've made. I've been flying around for a week
treating cases of fairy flu. King Dagda was listening sympathetically. He hung the
big black kettle over the fire and filled the teapot with cammile flowers. Well
did you see the plastic water bottle some human threw outside my door, said
King Dagda. I'm going to have to drag it all the way to the
recycling bin. Hm, that's not the worst, said Queen Maeve. King
Dagda stopped pouring the tea and turned around with a worried look in his face.
Go on, he said, giving her his full attention. We are
out of dust and we have no princess's tears. King dagged a froze.
A stony silence hung in the air. Eventually, he started mumbling to himself,
our nearest princess is Princess Moppet at Dungora Castle. As it is a
full moon tomorrow, our magic will run out unless we are redusted, so
we can't fly walking as out of the question. It would take ages and
we would have to cross the road. Bailey, the fat yellow pony might
take us, but we would all fall off jumping the wall as we can't
open the gate. He rambled on, scratching his head. I know,
he said the disappearing lake. He unrolled a large sheet of paper and started
scribbling notes. He may be messy, thought Sararah, but you can always
trust the King to come up with a plan.